page_title: Women in the Bible
section_title: Mary Magdalene
hierarchical_section_title: Women in the Bible / New Testament / Women in the New Testament / Mary Magdalene
context_page_description: The women in the Bible are rarely mentioned by name, with named women representing only 5.5 to 8 percent of the total of all named characters, male and female. This suggests that women were not usually in the forefront of public life. Those women that are named, rose to prominence for reasons outside the ordinary. They are often an aspect of the over-turning of man-made power structures commonly found in a biblical literary device called a "reversal." Abigail and Esther, Jael who drove a tent peg into the enemy commander's temple while he slept, are a few examples of women who turned the tables on men with power. The founding matriarchs are mentioned by name, as are some prophetesses, judges, heroines, and queens, while the common woman is largely, though not completely, unseen. The slave Hagar's story is told, and the prostitute Rahab's story is also told, along with a few others like them.
  All Ancient Near Eastern societies were patriarchal, and the Bible is a patriarchal document, written by men from a patriarchal age. Many scholars see the primary emphasis of the Bible as reinforcing women's subordinate status.
context_section_description: New Testament scholar Mary Ann Getty-Sullivan says Mary Magdalene, or Mary from the town of Magdala, is sometimes "erroneously identified as the sinner who anointed Jesus according to Luke's description in Luke 7:36-50. She is at times also confused with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (John 12:1-8)",  and is sometimes assumed to be the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11), though there is nothing in the text to indicate that. Luke qualifies her as "one who was healed" but otherwise little is known about her. There is nothing to directly indicate Mary Magdalene was a former prostitute, and some scholars believe she was a woman of means who helped support Jesus and his ministry.
  In John 20:1-13, Mary Magdalene sees the risen Jesus alone and he tells her "Don't touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my father." New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III says John is the only evangelist with a "keen interest" in portraying women in Jesus' story, yet, the "only Easter event narrated by all four evangelists concerns the visit of the women to the tomb of Jesus." Mary Magdalene and the other women go to anoint Jesus' body at the tomb, but find the body gone.  Mary Magdalene is inconsolable, but she turns and Jesus' speaks to her. He calls her by name and she recognizes him. Witherington adds, "There are certain parallels between the story of the appearance to Mary and John 20:24-31 (when Jesus appears to Thomas) [however] Mary is given an apostolic task (to go tell the men) and Thomas is not...  There is little doubt the Fourth evangelist wishes to portray Mary Magdalene as important, perhaps equally important for Jesus' fledgling community as Mother Mary herself."
  The Roman writer Celsus' On The True Doctrine, circa 175, is the earliest known comprehensive criticism of Christianity and survives exclusively in quotations from it in Contra Celsum, a refutation written in 248 by Origen of Alexandria.  Margaret MacDonald says Celsus' study of Christian scripture led him to focus on Mary Magdalene as the witness to the resurrection, as someone deluded by the "sorcery" by which Jesus did miracles, and as someone who then becomes one of Jesus' primary "instigators" and "perpetrators". MacDonald explains that, "In Celsus' work, Mary Magdalene's role in the resurrection story denigrates its credibility... From beginning to end, [Celsus says] the story of Jesus' life has been shaped by the 'fanciful imaginings' of women" thus lending enemy attestation to the importance of women in the early church and of Mary Magdalene herself.
  MacDonald sees this negative view of Mary as reflecting a challenge taking place within the church of the second century.  This was a challenge to Mary's role as a woman disciple and to leadership roles for women in general.  "The challenge to Mary's position has been evaluated as an indication of tensions between the existing fact of women's leadership in Christian communities and traditional Greco-Roman views about gender roles."  MacDonald adds that "Several apocryphal and gnostic texts provide evidence of such a controversy."
caption: Appearance of Jesus Christ to Maria Magdalena (1835) by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov.
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